NiceHash hacked - All Bitcoin stolen

However, if the user's wallets have been emptied, this will be amounting to nearly 56 million dollars, and that seems to have been transferred towards one BTC address.

NiceHash is a service that allows users to register and rent or buy cryptocurrency mining/hashing power. This way, users can benefit from bitcoin mining without purchasing or operating the equipment themselves.

NiceHash says it reached out to "to the relevant authorities and law enforcement".

The admission comes just hours after NiceHash first said its site was down for maintenance, and later that its team was "working hard to resolve the issues".

While the NiceHash operators seem honest with their statement, those words ring hollow for users that lost their accumulated BTC.

That led to NiceHash admitting via a release that "there has been a security breach involving NiceHash website". The company is now investigating the precise amount stolen, though estimates around the web put it north of $66 million United States dollars worth of the popular cryptocurrency (at time of writing 1 BTC = ~$13970.50).

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While NiceHash investigates the incident its services have been taken offline for the next 24 hours.

The company added that it was "fully committed to restoring the NiceHash service with the highest security measures at the earliest opportunity", but having experienced such a significant blow, how it will manage to return to trading without the ability to provide funds to those using its service is not clear at this point.

We would not exist without our devoted buyers and miners all around the globe.

"We understand that you will have a lot of questions, and we ask for patience and understanding while we investigate the causes and find the appropriate solutions for the future of the service", the company said in its statement. We will endeavor to update you at regular intervals.

In the meantime, they advised users to change all of their online passwords, as it is presently unclear what data the hackers were able to obtain in addition to the stolen funds.